Saturday, December 25, 2010

Japanese tourist claims Australian man told her 'You must have sex with me or die'

A Northern Territory man said he could see into the future and told a Japanese tourist she would die if they did not have sex on a "sacred site", a court has heard. The woman said the man told her he could see her dying in hospital in three years' time if she rejected his advances while at Ubirr Rock, a popular Kakadu site of ancient cave art. The woman's allegations were heard at a committal hearing in Darwin Magistrates Court this week.

Magistrate Michael Carey dismissed the four charges of sexual intercourse without consent against the man, saying the woman's evidence was unreliable, contradictory in some places and "did not hang together". "There is no way (a jury) would convict on her evidence," Mr Carey said. The woman alleged she was raped four times over October 16 and 17 last year at Ubirr Rock and the man's Jabiru home, 40km southwest of the tourist attraction.

Officer in charge of the investigation Detective Sergeant Ian Young told the committal hearing the case was thrown away, but he fished it out of the rubbish in August this year. The court heard the woman met the man when he offered to fix her tyre. Doctor Tracey Johns, who later examined the woman, told the court her patient said he had manipulated her into staying at his house while he fixed her tyre by talking about the dangers of camping in Kakadu.

Prosecutor Georgia McMasters said the Crown's case was that the woman did not have the ability to say no because her will was overpowered by him. When interviewed, the woman, who had limited English, said: "I had no option but to follow because I was scared, I was told I could no longer say no in this sacred place. I was told if I reject I will die, someone did because of rejecting." Mr Carey said the woman did not indicate a lack of consent to the sexual encounters. He said she might have been "incredibly naive or gullible".

Sex often involves coercion, but some coercion is rape and some isn't. If he held a knife to her and said she'd die if he didn't have sex with her, and she conceded, I'd call that rape. If he told her she'd die three years in the future because of her karma or her palm-reading, she's just a stupid woman who can't plead stupid to get out of everything.

I imagine that in this case, he might have been a total dick and she might have been really distressed, but I don't think our society can provide so much for people whose only defense is that they believed their fortune-teller told them they'd die in three years.